The extinct megalodon shark, Otodus megalodon, has captured the imagination of the public and paleontologists for over a century. This ancient shark, estimated to be the size of a modern whale shark or larger (~15 m, ref. 1), resembled white sharks—made famous by the movie “Jaws”—and marauded the Miocene seas of North Carolina, California, Japan, and even Malta. This has led to paleoecological questions about the ocean ecosystems that supported such enormous marine carnivores. Research has also sought a definitive answer as to why these iconic sharks went extinct, leaving “The Meg” to exist only on Hollywood movie screens and in the imaginations of everyone from elementary school students and amateur fossil hunters to stratigraphers and museum curators. The remarkably large fossil teeth of O. megalodon (Fig. 1) demand attention, similar to dinosaur skeletons and hominid skulls in their ability to transport us to the mysterious and unfamiliar worlds that Earth once hosted. Using new geochemical measurements of megalodon dental enamel, Griffiths et al. (2) add a new dimension by reconstructing body temperatures of these ancient sharks. Read the whole paper on PNAS.org >>
